Apple’s Q3 Earnings Sees China, Asia Revenue Down, But CEO Cook Still Pleased

Apple’s earnings summary for Q3 2012 has been released, and looking at the regional breakdown of the company’s revenue, the figures from the Asia Pacfic region are somewhat disappointing relative to its last quarter.

Asia Pacific had previously powered ahead of Europe (thanks to high demand for the iPhone) to become Apple’s number two revenue-generating region, but Q3 figures see Europe back on top by a slim margin (see interactive chart below).

Greater China accounted for $5.7 billion in revenue which is down from $7.9 in Q2. But it still accounts for the majority of Apple’s Asia Pacific revenue this quarter, which is about $7.9 billion. Tim cook noted that there were a few factors to consider when comparing the two quarters:

We launched the iPhone 4S in China in January, we added China Telecom as the second carrier in March, and as we proceed across the quarter we increased the channel inventory to accommodate the sales, and to reach our target inventory of four weeks to six weeks. The remainder of the sequential revenue decline is mainly attributable to normal seasonality after the very successful iPhone 4S launch. […] In terms of iPhones in general in mainland China, we were incredibly pleased with our results. We were up over a 100 percent year-over-year.

[Download image version of this chart]

Apple reps also noted that Q3 figures for China do not benefit from its iPad launch last week as well.

It should be noted that the Asia Pacific total does not include Japan, which brought in about $2 billion in revenue, down from about $2.6 billion in the previous quarter.